lest people should forsooth say, "We have only come up in order to taste fruit from

Galilee" (Pes. 8 b). Josephus speaks of the country in perfectly rapturous terms. He

counts no fewer than 240 towns and villages, and speaks of the smallest as containing

not less than 15,000 inhabitants! This, of course, must be gross exaggeration, as it

would make the country more than twice as thickly populated as the densest districts in

England or Belgium. Some one has compared Galilee to the manufacturing districts of

this country. This comparison, of course, applies only to the fact of its busy life,

although various industries were also carried on there --large potteries of different

kinds, and dyeworks. From the heights of Galilee the eye would rest on harbours, filled

with merchant ships, and on the sea, dotted with white sails. There, by the shore, and

also inland, smoked furnaces, where glass was made; along the great road moved the

caravans; in field, vineyard, and orchard all was activity. The great road quite traversed

Galilee, entering it where the Jordan is crossed by the so-called bridge of Jacob, then

touching Capernaum, going down to Nazareth, and passing on to the sea-coas t. This

was one advantage that Nazareth had--that it lay on the route of the world's traffic and

intercourse. Another peculiarity is strangely unknown to Christian writers. It appears

from ancient Rabbinical writings that Nazareth was one of the stations of the priests. All

the priests were divided into twenty-four courses, one of which was always on ministry

in the Temple. Now, the priests of the course which was to be on duty always gathered

in certain towns, whence they went up in company to the Temple; those who were

unable to go spending the week in fasting and prayer for their brethren. Nazareth was

one of these priestly centres; so that there, with symbolic significance, alike those

passed who carried on the traffic of the world, and those who ministered in the Temple.

We have spoken of Nazareth; and a few brief notices of other places in Galilee,

mentioned in the New Testament, may be of interest. Along the lake lay, north,

Capernaum, a large city; and near it, Chorazin, so celebrated for its grain, that, if it had

been closer to Jerusalem, it would have been used for the Temple; also Bethsaida,12 the

name, "house of fishes," indicating its trade.

Capernaum was the station where Matthew sat at the receipt of custom (Matt 9:9). South

of Capernaum was Magdala, the city of dyers, the home of Mary Magdalene (Mark

15:40, 16:1; Luke 8:2; John 20:1). The Talmud mentions its shops and its woolworks,

speaks of its great wealth, but also of the corruption of its inhabitants. Tiberias, which

had been built short ly before Christ, is only incidentally mentioned in the New

Testament (John 6:1,23, 21:1). At the time it was a splendid but chiefly heathen city,

whose magnificent buildings contrasted with the more humble dwellings common in the

country. Quite at the southern end of the lake was Tarichaea, the great fishing place,

whence preserved fish was exported in casks (Strabo, xvi, 2). It was there that, in the

great Roman war, a kind of naval battle was fought, which ended in terrible slaughter, no

quarter being given by the Romans, so that the lake was dyed red with the blood of the

victims, and the shore rendered pestilential by their bodies. Cana in Galilee was the

birthplace of Nathanael (John 21:2), where Christ performed His first miracle (John 2:1-

11); significant also in connection with the second miracle there witnessed, when the

new wine of the kingdom was first tasted by Gentile lips (John 4:46,47). Cana lay about

three hours to the north-north-east of Nazareth. Lastly, Nain was one of the

southernmost pla ces in Galilee, not far from the ancient Endor.

It can scarcely surprise us, however interesting it may prove, that such Jewish

recollections of the early Christians as the Rabbis have preserved, should linger chiefly

around Galilee. Thus we have, in quite the apostolic age, mention of miraculous cures

made, in the name of Jesus, by one Jacob of Chefar Sechanja (in Galilee), one of the

Rabbis violently opposing on one occasion an attempt of the kind, the patient

meanwhile dying during the dispute; repeated records of discussions with learned

Christians, and other indications of contact with Hebrew believers. Some have gone

farther, and found traces of the general spread of such views in the fact that a Galilean

teacher is introduced in Babylon as propounding the science of the Merkabah, or the

mystical doctrines connected with Ezekiel's vision of the Divine chariot, which certainly